CHENNAI: Contesting the personal assets claims of DMK president and Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalithaa on Friday called the voluntary disclosure a "blatant lie" that was intended to pull the wool over people's eyes.
In a statement here, Jayalalithaa, referring to Karunanidhi's claims that he had received Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 for writing dialogues in films like Manamagal and Iruvar Ullam, dared him to declare his annual income for all the years since he filed his first income tax return.
On the CM's assertion that he lived in a humble "streethouse" and that he had never encroached on State property, she alleged that he had been "encroaching" on 700 sqft of land in the backyard of his house in Gopalapuram.
Disputing Karunanidhi's claim that he hailed from a reasonably well-to-do family, she said he had declared (in 1946, when he wanted to enrol in the Kamalambika Cooperative Bank as a member) that he had no dry/wet lands or plots, barring jewels and a vessel worth Rs 1,000.
Claiming that the Radia tapes "revealed'' that large amounts of money were given to Karunanidhi's family members for making Dayanidhi Maran a Union Cabinet minister, she accused him of being the "fountainhead of corruption." Terming his assertion that he was a fire that would burn graft a great joke, she alleged that Karunanidhi was "trying to hide" the role of his daughter Kanimozhi in the 2G spectrum scam.